In 2000 Seiji Ozawa founded the Ongaku-juku with the goal of nurturing young musicians through opera.
One of Ozawa's mentor, Maestro von Karajan, used to say, "Symphony and opera are like the two wheels on the car called music." Ozawa cherishes thosewords and puts them into practice once a year with the Seiji Ozawa Ongaku-juku. An opera was performed every year for the first six years, and in 2006 a symphony was performed for the first time.